


Delaying the Inevitable

by FujinoLover



Series: Harley and Ivy [6]
Category: Harley Quinn (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Harlivy endgame, Ivy-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26420659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FujinoLover/pseuds/FujinoLover
Summary: After being duped by Two-face about Gordon’s plan to crash Ivy’s wedding, Harley got herself back in Arkham. Without her best friend in the picture, it didn’t take long for Ivy to realize that it wasn’t the kind of life that she wanted.
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel, Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy/Kiteman
Series: Harley and Ivy [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824364
Comments: 2
Kudos: 84





	Delaying the Inevitable

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not a naturally empathic person, so I really hope I managed to capture the right emotions for this story.
> 
> Again, just in case the tag and summary were not clear enough, this is _not_ a happy Ivy/Kiteman story.

It was a late evening with testing a new chili recipe that Ivy finally blew up. Kiteman didn’t even do anything wrong. They were back from Sunday dinner with his parents earlier and had watched TV for two hours, alternating with checking their phones—still no judgment there—and at one point in the late night, he dropped a small bowl full of chili. That was all it took: a shattered dish on the marble counter of their kitchen that she just put a shine on earlier that day because she really had nothing to do nowadays.

“For fuck’s sake!”

Kiteman’s chuckles died off. “Sorry babe.”

Ivy abandoned her phone and the couch, snatching the rag he was going to use to clean the mess and did it herself. She pulled out the trash can hidden underneath and swept everything down. She was too determined to clean up the fucking mess, not the first one he made and certainly wouldn’t be the last one, that she didn’t realize that a piece of glass had cut the side of her hand. She wiped off the sticky green liquid too, jaws working as she grew even more frustrated because it kept coming back.

“Pam, you’re bleeding.”

There wasn’t even anything remotely startling. Kiteman had kept his voice in its neutral tone and Ivy actually saw his hand moved to cover hers, yet she jerked her arm away as if burned. It was then that she realized the cut. Nature’s renewing power had fixed it in the short time, it wasn’t even bleeding or hurting anymore.

“Babe, are you okay?” Kiteman asked, standing on his spot not daring a single move in fear of spooking Ivy again. “You are super tense all day.”

Instead of the usual assurance, Ivy deflated. It had been four long months since the wedding, since she last saw Harley, since she began a new life. It was good at first. They went on a honeymoon, just the two of them, and even though a certain pigtailed blonde lived in Ivy’s mind, she could deal with that. Thanks to Sy, she found a small, ranch-style house in between old and new Gotham. Moving and settling in took the first month of her married life. There was nothing better to distract herself from wondering about her best friend than filling the vast lawn with her babies.

The second month she found the hard way that being married meant attached on the hip 24/7. At least being married to Kiteman did. With her biotech patents, money was never really a problem for her and she was never one to subscribe to the idea of men being the main bread-winner in a household. She was fine with him working small heists, but they were far in between. Most of the time he was home, designing new kites or making chili or sitting on the couch watching TV for four to six hours. She tried to encourage him to go out more, but _why would I, when I have a beautiful wife at home_ and she found herself detesting the compliment.

The third month hit her the hardest. It was the longest she ever been without her best friend. Restlessness and frustration began mounting, maybe she was just as sick as Harley was back then with her obsession with the Joker. Harley was, ironically, still in Arkham. Just a drive away. If Ivy concentrated hard enough, she could actually feel her whenever she was out in the field, and nowadays there was nothing else for her to do other than that. She could have paid her a visit, surely that would get herself caught again.

Last time, when Batman threw Harley in Arkham, Ivy was living alone—well, with Frank and all her babies. She could afford leaving them to go and save Harley, she couldn’t anymore due to the existence of a legally wedded spouse that she should consult before leaving for an extended period and she just knew he wouldn’t agree. She disliked the invisible chains of marriage that kept her put.

With the fourth month came Kiteman’s parents. He was over the moon when his mother welcomed them. She wouldn’t dare to ruin that for him, even though it meant smiling and nodding at _their_ plan for their future imaginary grandchildren that _she_ , apparently, was to carry within the year if they wanted to keep up with the four kids program. Maybe parents, other than her own, did love her, but she hated all of them.

“Pam? Ivy?” Kiteman tried again. Ivy was looking straight through him. “Are you okay? Is this because what Mother said earlier?”

“No.” Ivy blinked, like she just had the rudest waking up in history. “I can’t do this anymore, Chuck.”

“Do what?”

Ivy gestured wildly at the space around them. “ _This_.”

“Babe, you’re freakin’ me out.”

“I’ve been denying a lot of myself for a long time,” she mumbled mostly to herself. The equally lost and frightened look on his face didn’t deter her like it usually did. She was done. “I guess… I guess it seems easier for me to just go along with this, you know?” she said, voice growing stronger along with her confidence on her decision. “But now I realize I hurt a lot of people delaying the inevitable.”

“It’s Harley.” It wasn’t even posed as a question. Bitterness mingled with defeat as his shoulders dropped. “By people, you mean Harley.”

The name snapped Ivy out of her thoughts. “No. Yes, but no,” she said.

Because it was never not Harley. It was for her that she hired a neighbor kid—a _human kid_ —to water her precious babies and went to let herself be caught over petty crime and sent to Arkham and waited almost a whole year, repeating over and over like a broken record herself, that _he is not coming_. It was always Harley, but not this time.

“It’s me. It’s—It’s _us_ , Chuck.” She came to stand in front of him, hand raised to rest on his broad chest, the way she always comforted him. She barely brushed his shirt before pulling her hand back, balling it into a fist against her chest. “I’m not the person for you.”

“But you are. I can’t do better than you.”

His self-deprecating tone and sheepish grin only spurred her on. “I’m not this housewife sitting around doing nothing other than cleaning the house all day—” which was ironically what she used to do back when Harley just formed her crew “—and going to Sunday dinners with your parents and bites my tongue while they pester me about grandchildren when I don’t want to have kids!”

“But—”

“Not now. Not a boy, a girl, and a pair of twins like you want. It’s always about what _you_ want for us. Now it’s what _your parents_ want! I’m just sick of managing everyone’s feelings. I have my own. I don’t even know if I wanted to raise a child with you!”

She gasped, hand flew to cover her mouth, but it was all too late. The words were out, hanging over them like a wet blanket. She didn’t hate kids—she loved them, but having her own was a whole another level she didn’t have the slightest idea on how to navigate.

She always thought she would have at least two, because being an only child was lonely and Harley had Barry no matter how short. But there were also irrational fears, that she wouldn’t be a good parent, that she would be emotionally unavailable and her child would grow up with the same abandonment issue that she had, and that she would be just like her father. She just knew, with the same ease of knowing how to manipulate the plant life around her, that if she were to someday find out that she was with a child, she would want Harley by her side. Not only because she was her best friend, but she was also her therapist—she knew her best out of everyone in the whole multiverses. It was always Harley she saw her future with, whether romantic or platonic.

“Pamela... I’m so sorry.”

She stepped back when he came forward with the intention of engulfing her in a hug. Any other day she wouldn’t think twice about leaping into his arms, but not today. It was her mess to deal with. Tears burned the corner of her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall.

“I should have told you,” she says a long time later, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m so—” She retracted before the apology could fully form. She was not sorry. Her body, her life, her choice. “We should have talked about it before.”

It hurt her to see the light being plucked out of him one by one. There was a reason expressing one’s feelings is always suggested as the healthiest option by the professionals, but she wasn’t mentally healthy for a long time. Harley used to call her _bananas_ , because she indeed shared half of her DNA with plants and from time to time she got kind of crazy when all of her suppressed emotions reached the tipping point. She would go through an ugly purging that left several broken relationships on its wake. Totally bananas.

“Let’s—let’s talk about this.” He chuckled awkwardly as he retreated to the living space. “We promised that we won’t go to bed angry.”

Ivy suspected there would be no going to bed that night, at least not for her and not in their ranch-style house, but talking was a good start. So for once, she did. She told him everything—not actually _everything_. She glossed over her whole childhood, only mentioning her shitty father once or twice. It’d been decades. She had gone through it years ago that his abuse was no longer her defining moment, because Harley helped her.

Once she started talking about her best friend, there was no stopping it. She told him about how scared she was of losing her, how what they did in Themyscira was only a mistake because she was engaged, how she didn’t regret any of it, how he was always there for her even after everything, and how she chose him because he was the safest option. It was unfair, but it was long overdue.

“Don’t…” Kiteman swallowed hard, tears brimming on the corner of his eyes once Ivy fell silent on the end of her speech. “Don’t you love me?” he asked in a small, hopeful voice.

“I do love you, Chuck. You’re kind, you don’t let anyone else’s stupid opinion weigh you down, and I can stand your limited presence without actively trying to kill you, which is saying a lot coming from me.” Ivy reached forward to hold on his hand and gave it a squeeze. “But I’m not _in_ love with you.”

He choked on a sob. “What do we—what do _you_ want to do now?” Because through their relationship, it was about what _he_ wanted, she made him see that. While she was at fault for catering to him instead of standing for herself, he was determined to not be that asshole anymore.

“I want a divorce.”

It pained her to say it with such finality, to watch him crumpled even further in front of her. But he was the kind that would do something over and over and over again until it sticks (wasn’t that the definition of insanity?). There was no sticking it this time, she wanted to make that very clear.

“No! Why?”

There were tears in both of their eyes.

“You deserve the best, and that—that’s not me.”

She had time to process her feelings. For a short while, she managed to convince herself that it was okay, that she could continue living like this way, she could settle down with someone who loved her and would never abandon her, someone she loved enough to accept the existence of. Through the last month, she had tried to not take her frustration out on him, tried to think what it would be like to go along with it like she had been doing since before they dated, but his weight on top of her began to stifle her. The determination in his eyes shamed her to clench hers shut. She didn’t realize when it became an act and she was, again, trapped. Only this time in a pit of a marriage _she_ chose.

Despite the pain, she powered through. Ripping a band aid and all of that, it hurt so bad but only for a moment, then she could start healing. “You can keep the house. It’s all paid until the end of this year,” she said.

It was easier to deal with the logistics of the aftermath. It was too much hassle to break the lease. She also pitied him a little. In a way, it was just another compensation—she might have processed most of her feelings but she was still shit about dealing with it. She did feel bad for this whole mess, if only she could have gotten her shit together faster they wouldn’t have to go through this shitshow.

“Where are you gonna stay, Pam? I can’t—”

“Take it. I’m serious. I still have my apartment.”

At first, back when she moved in with Harley and her crew to the abandoned mall, she kept the apartment for her greenhouse. Then when the crew sort of disbanded and Harley stayed in Arkham and she in a different kind of cell, it became a place she went to be alone. She should have known that the moment she yearned to be back to being alone, despite the dull loneliness it brought, she knew that her marriage was doomed.

“And Harley? Are you going to…”

It was none of his business. She supposed the hurt was still too raw, but she couldn’t let him turn his hatred to Harley. They all played their part in this mess, but Harley had taken herself out of the equation when she willingly got locked up in Arkham. It was only him and her left, and the mess that was their marriage.

“No. I need to be alone for a bit.”

There were hurtful things that she said to her, in an emotional torrent, that she would regret until the end of time. It wasn’t enough to tear their friendship apart, despite the small voice nagging deep in the cavity of her chest that she had blown them up. At the very least, their friendship had endured the likes of Batman and Joker. She had to believe that they could and would endure Kiteman.

No matter how badly she was dying to rush to Arkham, to tear its rusty gate and brick walls down with her vines until she gets her sun back, willing to beg for forgiveness, she wasn’t ready and it would be unfair to Harley. The last she wanted was to make her feel like the second option, because she never was.

* * *

Getting the divorce papers was easier than Ivy had thought, although her lawyer’s candid comment of _normally there is no divorce for villains, they just got rid of their spouse_ did throw her off a little. She signed on her parts between arranging her closet back in her apartment. Four months of marriage in a dream house and all of her stuffs fit in two neat boxes. She tried not to think too much about what a warning sign it was and what a fool she was to blind herself that badly. She had booked a one-way ticket out of Gotham for the evening, but before going to Archie Goodwin International Airport, she had to make a pit stop in New Gotham.

When she got in the correct floor of the apartment building, she saw Clayface standing outside the door with a full bag on one arm. He waved and grinned at her with his free hand. She got to him just in time for King Shark to slip out of the door with one last air kiss for Lou and Bud.

“Ivy!” Clayface cheered.

King Shark flipped open his Waynebook in haste to reveal Sy, who greeted her with an excited _Evie!_. Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, she wondered if it was a good idea to put him in a laptop. He could have gotten loose in the internet and infected everyone through the screens, turning them into blood thirsty zombies like some kind of anti-life equation virus. Her brief thought got cut off when he dozed off.

“We’re heading to...” Clayface motioned at the bag full of alcohol and at her, seemingly lost on words, an unusual occurrence for him. “You know…”

“Kiteman’s place,” Ivy’s supplied.

“Yes. But we can keep you company.”

Ivy shook her head. “I have a plane to catch.”

“Where are you going?” King Shark asked.

“Back to my roots.” Ivy couldn’t help but chuckle at the pun. She sobered up just as fast. “Chuck is going through a rough time right now. Can you guys be good to him?”

 _Of course we will_ and _you be good to yourself too_ answered her at the same time.

She was glad that Kiteman found friends, even though they were Harley’s crew.

“And Harley?”

Clayface went to visit Harley every week, entertaining her with the different personas he used. Their meeting always included Harley asking about Ivy and telling him that she’d get out as soon as she was ready, that she had to find herself first because she was a little lost at the moment, that she would be back being Ivy’s best friend once she was sure she wouldn’t fuck things up between her and Kiteman. Clayface, King Shark, and Sy all understood—they were her forever crew, after all. Ivy, on the other hand, always bit her tongue and nodded.

“Just tell her...” Ivy fell silent, contemplating what she should tell Harley. The last she wanted was for when Harley got out, couldn’t find her, assumed she was abducted like before, and went berserk on a smashing rampage. “Tell her I’ll be back before she knows it.”

“We will wait for you too,” King Shark said.

Clayface seconded with a dramatic _cross my heart and hope to die_ as he opened his arms. Back when they went to Harley’s mind, all she did was patting him on the shoulder while Harley jumped to hug him. This time, she stepped forward into the hug herself. He was all gooey and weird, but he smelt like earth and she liked it. She liked it too when King Shark joined the embrace. Despite all the mess, she too had found real friends that she cherished.

Ivy passed Robinson Park on her way to the airport, heading straight to New Trigate Bridge. It might or might not be intentional on her part. The Vincefinkel Bridge was practically on the opposite end and she didn’t feel like using any of the tunnels. It just so happened that to get to the New Trigate Bridge, one must pass Arkham Asylum. There was nothing different of the old asylum as Ivy drove past, she couldn’t see Harley from that far, but the ache in her chest told her that her best friend was there. Still, she continued.

_Just a little longer, Harls._

It was easy to not think about Harley once she arrived on the Amazon Rainforest. She’d heard of the extensive damage from the last fire, but seeing it firsthand was devastating. The Green was screaming at her, every way she turned. It almost drove her crazy. While it was tempting to go to the higher-ups, she didn’t. Sometimes it wasn’t about rolling heads. Changes begin from small things. Heads could roll later, preferably with Harley bashing them.

Using the anger to fuel her, she summoned her power to entice the growth of the flora: the seeds hidden under the sooth and the weak sprouts and the dried up roots. Her days spent on moving through the burned patch, using her power until there was enough vegetation to cover the land.

Once deep enough in the woods, she encountered the natives, who at first tried to fight her. She might not understand their language, but their intention was clear: they were only protecting their lands. After a showcase of her ability, they had a total turn of heart and started worshipping her like some kind of goddess. It was really awkward, but they helped her quest in restoring the forest, fed and protected her when she was too spent after draining all her power, and it was definitely better than having herself on the end of their spears. The unfortunate illegal loggers helped too—humans did make good fertilizer. She did the ground work until she saw an actual change and felt a lot lighter than when she first landed. Then she knew it was time to go home.

The first thing she did when she arrived back in Gotham was calling Clayface, to inform that she was back and to confirm that yes, Harley was still in Arkham. She didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad by the news, probably a little bit of both. On one hand, she had expected Harley to move on, simply from the fact that the blonde couldn’t stand still for a prolonged period of time. If Harley had gotten over her and all her emotional mess, then it was time for Ivy to prove herself worthy of her affection—she was prepared for that. On the other hand, the messed up part of her that feared abandonment was glad that Harley hadn’t moved on, even on the risk of her going through depression. Either way, she had a lot of making up to do and an apology was in order.

It was raining when she got out of the airport. She had nothing but the clothes on her back. Getting a cab wasn’t easy when one was a well-known eco-terrorist with green skin. She simply stopped the first bike that came into her sight, threw the rider off, and stole it. The ride to Arkham left her soaked to the bones. The rain was acidic, so different from the clean one she bathed herself with for the past months. She vowed to change the city’s lack of greenery as soon as she could.

By the time she arrived at the asylum, her skin itched from the rain. Fifty yards of concrete and chain links and barb wires and thick-walled cells and metal bars were nothing when she was standing on the outside. Summoning her vines, greens slithered out from everywhere. Harley was probably in her cell in the second floor—they had stayed in the establishment many times enough to earn their own cells. Her plants carried her there.

Once it checked out that Harley was indeed still in, she concentrated her vines on that section. Tendrils slipped through the cracks on the wall, covering its entirety, and with a jerk of her arm, the whole barrier torn apart. She heard Harley coughing and cursing as she stepped away from the dust. She was much paler, swallowed by Arkham’s ugly orange uniform, and her hair had lost its dyed tips. When she saw Ivy, she halted, jaw dropped.

“ _Hola_.”

Ivy would have been more concerned about her look, drenched from head to toe with matted hair and mascara running down her face were not the kind of look she wanted the love of her life to see her in after months apart. However, said love of her life happened to also be her best friend. Harley didn’t care. Once she got over her shock, she pretty much threw herself into Ivy’s arms, yelling her name too close to her ear, but she squeezed her all the same. Her sun was shining back up and she could finally soak in her warmth again.


End file.
